SCWEC was established on March 29, 2001 in Colombo, Sri Lanka, with the objective of developing and promoting women entrepreneurs in the South Asian region. The Council works towards facilitating co-operation and networking among the women entrepreneurs of the SAARC region. It is an effective platform for strengthening the intra-regional development of women entrepreneurship for economic development thus helping to exchange information on entrepreneurial skills and building trade links among the women of the SAARC region.

Since the inception of SCWEC a number of workshops, round table conference, seminars, training programs, annual events have been held during the tenure of SCWEC Chair Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and India. These networking programs have led to some common challenges enabling us to identify some best practices for replication as regional projects. This could result in better opportunities for SAARC entrepreneurs to strengthen their trade activities.

SCWEC is committed to the development of woman entrepreneurship with tangible goals of increasing business opportunities, building markets, job creation as well as strategic networking and growing woman run enterprises into mainstream business. It is a member based Council.